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Age of Heroes
Religion *Society *Culture Groups *Economics *Technology *Education - Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy) *Warfare Time Frame It is well known that Rome dominated the Mediterranean region from around 200 B.C.E. until its conquest in 476. What is not so well known is that around the time the Empire stopped expanding (ca. 200), many of the regions bordering it entered what are known as heroic ages. The Irish Ulster cycle, centering around Conchobar, traditionally took place during the first century. At the same time, a wave of Germanic tribes invaded Europe from the east and in the process initiated their own heroic age - Beowulf, Hrolf Kraki, and Sigurd all had cycles focusing around them. By 410, Rome itself had been sacked. The next few decades saw the Roman Empire deteriorate until Rome itself was conquered by the Ostrogoths in 476. This led to a British heroic age, of which Arthur was the center. Whereas the Irish heroic age seems to have lasted roughly a generation, the Germanic went into the sixth century - we know that both Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki date to that period - and only came to a close with the development of stable kingships. The British age lasted into the seventh century, when their kingdoms’ boundaries and dynasties stabilized. Significant Traits The heroic age marked the end of an era that had been noteworthy for centuries of stable trade, government, roads, currency, and culture. It came with a few hundred years of famines, plagues, raiding, and conquests. At the center of these ages were simple chieftains, many of whom are still remembered. None of these individuals probably controlled any more than a few hundred square miles, but they did inspire their peers with their accomplishments while their professional historians, bards and skops told stories about them. Christianity had become the state religion during the Roman period, but would become entrenched during the Age of Heroes as it rapidly spread through the British Isles and among the Germanic peoples. By the late seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of Europe. Major Events In around 367, the Roman Empire started bringing Germanic tribes over to Britain to act as foederati, an auxiliary military force to combat piracy and raiding on the island. The agreement involved the Empire giving gathered food and supplies from the province to the them in exchange for their services. In 409 the last Roman general in Britain, Constantine, took the title of emperor and invaded the continent. As part of his promotion the Roman government there was overthrown and replaced by his own officials. When he died in 411, the government was again overthrown. This led to a fracturing of the former province. A reduction of food and supplies to foederati throughout the Empire, which led to the sacking of Rome in 410. This weakened the prestige of the Roman Empire forever and breaking the psychological hold of the empire over the Germanic tribes as an immortal and all-powerful artifice. In the middle of the fifth century, possibly 441, local efforts to maintain a supply of food and supplies to the foederati failed. This led to a Germanic revolt after which their clans established control over individual villages along the eastern coast and claimed the needed materials as a tribute. In 451, Attila lost the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne, and he died two years later. Attila had united most of the Germanic tribes under his banner. His death dispersed them again and initiated an era known as the heroic age in which famous people like Hrolf Kraki, Beowulf, Arthur, Sigurd, and Theodoric would thrive. In 476 the city of Rome fell to the Ostrogoths. The Empire's western holdings were quickly taken up by various tribes. Several had already occupied Britain, while the Visigoths took Spain, the Ostrogoths settled in the rest of Italy, the Lombards and Franks were the main tribes in France, and so forth. In the late fifth century the first British kingdoms would emerge from what had been Roman Britain. These were localized responses to continued expansion by the Germanic tribes. The re-establishment of British kingdoms would give the British a decided advantage until the mid-sixth century, when the Germanic peoples would develop their own kingships. Their access to better farmland meant they could feed more warriors with the same amount of land and put larger armies on the field of any battle. The next few centuries would see the consolidation of Frankia, Spain, and Portugal though dozens of kingdoms continued to exist in Italy, Germany, and Britain until well after about 650, when the Age of Heroes ended. Religion There were four primary religions and several cult followings in post-Roman Britain - an underground Mother Earth religion, traditional Celtic, Christianity, the religion of the Germanic peoples, and following of Mithras and Belatacudros. Mother Earth We know very little about this religion, which was likely practiced well away from settlements. It seems to have been a natural development of the Great Goddess religion, taking into account a knowledge of the male element in reproduction and intolerance of both the new religion and the more traditional beliefs of the Celts. At the center of the religion was the replenishing quality of the planet, both in its flora and fauna. Worship groups appear to have been formed into covens of witches. At holidays, definitely the spring equinox but possibly during other times during the year, a simple ritual was performed. A male was ritually sacrificed and placed into a cauldron. He re-emerged as a young male. The ritual was deeply symbolic. The choice of male was because of the reproductive nature of the phallus as opposed to the consistent fertility of women. The young male represented the new year, spring, a time of new life. It was believed that our planet was like a person, growing old over the course of a year until it had to be sacrificed in order to make way for the new. We have no name to associate with the female element in these rituals, so that it is possible that there was none. The male seems to have varied by region - we know of Belatacudros and Cernunnos, the latter of which was associated with crows and ravens and shown with a stag’s horns. These were the updated versions of the Young and Dying God of the oldest agricultural civilizations. Over the course of the Middle Ages, practitioners of this religion would become known as witches, to be hunted down and murdered. Their chief holidays were the winter and summer solstice and the spring and autumn equinox, just like the people of the ice age. Celtic The historical invasions were a part of Celtic mythology. It was believed that the giants of myth were descendants of an earlier race known as the Fomorians while the fairies represented another. The former group were active in this world and perceived as representations of the destructive force of nature - like the Jotuns of Norse mythology or the Titans for the Greeks. And like them, the Fomorians had probably been nature-worshipping people. The latter group were said to live in an Otherworld. The Fomorians combatted with the Celts' gods, the Tuatha de Danaan, so that the Irish were aware of them but did not have to worry about them in their daily lives. Fairies were more problematic, but they did not actively seek out humans. On their festival days they would emerge from their sidh to celebrate. If a person happened upon them, the fairies would invite them to their home, where there were boundless wonders and no one ever aged. Technology, beauty, and wealth were believed to be the treasures of the fairies. The catch was that when a mortal went with the fairies he could never return. A day there might be a century in the real world, so that anyone trying to return would turn to dust. Just because the gods were not active in mortals’ lives didn’t mean they weren’t aware, and didn’t need to be respected. We know of regular sacrifices to the gods via drowning, immolation, hanging, and beheading. We do not know the occasion, or even to which god(s) they were sacrificed too, though. We have no way of knowing if they sacrificed captured warriors during internecine conflicts, but they did impale the heads of Roman soldiers during the Boudiccan Revolt. Votive offerings of warrior armaments were also common. Also, the occasional articles of jewelry, bowls, torques, and coins have been found mainly in rivers, lakes, and bogs. It is feasible that water gods may have been associated with warfare, but this would not explain the other objects. The simple fact that objects can disappear and therefore provide the illusion of having been taken might have been the Celts’ reason to use water for sacrifices. Bodies of water might have been used for all gods. There was one aspect of everyday life that did revolve around the supernatural, and that was Celtic kingship. In a continuation of pre-Celtic thinking, the land was considered to be a living entity. When a king assumed the throne, part of the coronation ceremony involved his symbolic marriage to the land, in the form of a woman. For the Celts, the marriage meant the same sort of relationship to be found in most ancient cultures, that the land gave up its independence to her new lord. However, Celtic lands were accorded some power. Legend had it that if a king proved himself unworthy through cowardice, poor legal judgments, or by losing any portion of his body the land would grow barren. Symbolically, this meant that his wife would turn into an old hag. She would only regain her former beauty when the old king had been sacrificed and thrown into a bog and she was married to the man of her choice. The Druids seem to have been a unique entity in Celtic affairs, credited as lawyers, teachers, and magicians. We know they were exempt from military and political responsibilities. They acted as priests during ceremonies and were believed to possess supernatural knowledge not unlike a shaman. Apart from this, we know very little about them apart from Roman and Christian propaganda. Roman records indicate there was a campaign to wipe them out during the Roman occupation, even though there is no suggestion that the druids were responsible for any revolt. This suggests there was something about them their inherent beliefs or actions that threatened rule. Apart from that, we know only that they were associated with the oak tree and mistletoe. The Celtic peoples held that the head was not only the center of a person's intelligence but also its emotions and soul. As such it was popular in art; stone heads dot the modern landscapes of Britain and Ireland. In warfare, the head held a deeply symbolic meaning. Worthy opponents were often beheaded after death, the skulls collected in trunks or stone trophy cases and shown to visitors. The dead among them would be put on stakes and used as protection of the camp or fortress. Cedar oil was used as a preservative. Instead it was believed that a soul would find a body most suited to it, so a good warrior would find his way to a warrior's family while a farmer would find his way back to the land. The belief in transmigration was so strong among the ancient Celts that they were occasionally known to makes bets and take loans that would be paid in the next life. Holidays Holidays among the Britons often involved feasting and drinking. Common alcohols included honey-wine known as ‘’bragawt’’ as well as elderberry and rhubarb wine which were sometimes flavored with woodruff. Holidays began and ended at dusk *Alban Eilir: March 20 to 21, spring equinox. *Alban Elfed: September 22 and 23, fall equinox. *Calan Gaeaf: October 31 to November 1, it marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark half of the year, when livestock was brought back from their summer grazing and the slaughtered were chosen. As such it was believed to be a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the otherworld was weakened. It was common custom to leave food outside of doorways or invite them in. Special bonfires were believed to have protective and cleansing powers. People would go door to door in costumes imitating fairies and reciting verses or entire plays, guising and mumming, in exchange for food. Horse racing was common among the nobility. In Ireland, it was custom that every third year nobles and the best bards would get together and create new laws. *Calan Haf: Occurs beginning on the evening of April 30 and lasts till the following dusk and was also considered a liminal time, when livestock was sent into the fields for the summer. The main celebration was when a man symbolizing winter dressed up with a blackthorn stick and a shield with cotton stuck to it, then mock battled with another man symbolizing summer and dressed in garlands, ribbons, and carrying a willow-wand. When Summer won, a king and queen were elected. Groups of people traveled from house to house accompanied by a fiddler or harpist and sang bawdy songs in return for food, drink, and sometimes money. *Eisteddfod: A celebration of literature, music, and performance. Christianity The new faith came to Britain in the first century. As with the rest of the Roman Empire, believers spread their faith as fast as possible. Enjoying periods of alternative popularity and official , there are indications of Christians temples as well as the chi-rho symbols of people well before the fifth century. Public crosses, standing up to 25 feet high, were decorated with scenes from the Bible, making it possible to illustrate stories to an audience that didn’t need to read. The spread of Christianity continued well into the post-Roman period, with “saints” like David, Columba, Dubricius, and Samson coming into contact with and making the attempt to convert them. The Christianity of Britain and Ireland was organized differently than on the continent. In France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere priests guided local flocks, bishops were assigned to metropolises, and the primary bishops were in Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and the other major cities of the Mediterranean region. As the offices grew higher, the social and political influences grew as well. In this setting, abbots served merely as the keepers of ancient knowledge and as the leaders of monasteries. Abbots in Britain and Ireland possessed the political and social influence. Patrick, Gildas, Dubricius, Cadoc, and Illtud were some of the best educated and most sought after people of their generations. They taught generation after generation of princes and highly intelligent peasants. By contrast, bishops were in charge of administration. That Christianity could have developed so differently was a result of the political situation in Britain beginning in the fifth century. With the breakdown in Roman government beginning in around 410, the Germanic sea raiders that had preyed on Roman shipping for decades came to dominate the English Channel. This did not altogether stop trade and communications to and from the continent, but it did allow the Britons and with them the Irish to ignore whatever alterations were made to the Christian faith and to organize the religion in whatever manner they chose. The personal magnetism of leaders like Patrick and Cadoc largely led to the latter, while ignoring the synods of the fifth century on also allowed the Celts to retain some of their more ancient and less acceptable practices. There were four basic differences. * Tonsure: The shaving of one's head so that the remaining hair looks like a halo came into style on the continent, but was not picked up until after the Council of Whitby. * Easter: The Celts all used a modified form of St. Jerome's method, called Celtic-84 after the number of years in each cycle. A slightly different way of calculating the holiday was proposed by Victorius of Aquitaine and later Dionysius Exiguus but was not immediately known by the British, Picts, and Irish. They were made aware of it in 602 and had all conformed by 716. * Penance: The prevailing continental custom was that confession was made publicly. On the British Isles it was done privately with a priest. * Peregrinatio: What had been meant as living a life separated from the material world while waiting for the afterlife became, among the Irish and British, an act of physically moving. It was common for churchmen to move from their homes, often leaving the island of their birth. Monasteries were considered a more extreme way to being closer to God. For that reason, the portions of alcohol and meat a monk was allowed to have during the course of a day was spelled out in the basic laws, or rules, of each monastery. Some, following David and Uinniau of Moville, kept to a diet of strictly water and bread except under unusual circumstances, whereas the rules of most were more relaxed. In general, the diet of a typical monk was probably the healthiest of any person in the Middle Ages. Food was not the only aspect of the Rule. The amount of time spent growing crops, the tools allowed in working the ground, and the amount of outside help (slaves or freeman) that a monastery accepted were all laid out. Monasteries were also a means of screening the monks from the outside world. This was not always possible, however, as the medieval Celtic monastery was a teaching establishment. Hermits were fairly common as a more isolationist approach to monasticism. As Roman government and secular Roman teachers disappeared in Britain, monasteries began to take up the slack. They welcomed the exceptionally intelligent from the lower classes as potential ecclesiastics and accepted princes from royal families and the wealthy as a means of balancing costs and helping the monastery. It was not uncommon for the most prominent intellects to travel between monasteries to discuss the ideas of the day, or to carry on correspondence. Depending on the Rule of the monastery, a monk might be expected to spend a good portion of his time copying the manuscripts of passed thinkers. For a monk this could be a means of expanding the monastery library, but it was also a way for the monk to learn. Requesting a specific manuscript from another monastery invited learning and discussion. It also led to the preservation of many manuscripts that would otherwise have been lost during the Middle Ages. Of course this also meant that reads that interested monks had a better chance of survival than those that did not. Olympiodorus' histories contain many valuable insights into the ancient world that are gone forever, whereas Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful history of Britain has more extant copies than any other medieval work outside of the Bible. Because of their diet, relative isolation, and the general cleanliness of the monastery, religious people were some of the healthiest of the period. Whereas it was rare for a layman to live into their fifties, many religious people may have lived beyond 80. One of the most prevalent beliefs of the Middle Ages was in Lilith, the first wife of Adam who had refused to be obedient to him and instead escaped from him. The archetypal bad woman, she was believed to seduce men in order to produce demons and to kill human children. Hebrew myth commonly labeled her a beast or demon herself. Holidays *All Saints’ Day: May 13, practiced sporadically until the seventh century, it was a day set aside for all saints, known and unknown. *Ash Wednesday: The first day of Lent, was meant to commemorate the forty days Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by Satan. Ashes were spread on churchgoers. *Candlemas: *Christmas: December 25, celebrated as the birth day of Christ. It was overshadowed by Epiphany, at which the three magi announced Christ's significance. The date roughly coincided with the Winter Solstice, and for that reason held its own significance. *Easter: The day Jesus rose from the grave. Churchgoers would watch the first rays of sunlight and have the priest lead them into church as they sang hymns. If a person could afford it they wore new clothes, often their only new clothes all year. After service, there would be an egg hunt. No one was allowed to work on Easter. Often a servant would give the lord a small gift or a newborn animal in exchange for a feast. * Epiphany: January 6, the visit of the three magi, it occurred on the last day of Christmas. * Good Friday: The day Jesus was put on the cross. No nails or iron instruments were allowed on this day. *Hock Monday: Unmarried women would capture unmarried men and ransom them with a donation to the church. * Hock Tuesday: Unmarried men would capture unmarried women and ransom them with a donation to the church. * Holy Wednesday: The day Jesus went to the house of Simon the Leper and was anointed by a woman. This made several of the disciples indignant and Judas Iscariot made a deal with the Sanhedrin to betray Jesus. *Lent: The forty days prior to Easter were spent in hard fasting and abstinence. Eggs and meat were allowed during this time. Eggs laid then were hard boiled and eaten on Easter. *Maundy Thursday: The day Jesus was betrayed by Judas. *Palm Sunday: The day Jesus entered Jerusalem. It is customary to have a blessing of palm or some other leaves, often outside the church. *Epiphany *Festival of Fire *May Day *Michaelmas *Midsummer Eve *St. Crispin's Day *Saint John’s Day Germanic When the Germanic tribes invaded northern Europe during the Roman Empire they successfully meshed their gods with the natives creating a religion with two families of gods, one focused on protecting humans from the jotuns (Aesir) and a second more interested in culture (Vanir). This was further diversified by tribal gods. Among those who migrated to Britain, these deities had slightly different names but performed largely the same functions. Woden was the king of the gods. His crows were said to watch Jotunheim for any activity leading up to Ragnarok. He was often named as the father of a dynasty. Thunor or Donar, god of thunder, was known to go on raids in Jotunheim to keep the enemy off balance - he was listed as the normal dynastic head. Tiw represented honor, as he sacrificed his right hand in recompense for binding the Fenris Wolf. Baeldaeg‘s original identity is unknown, but once the Germanic peoples were Christianization he became a Christ-figure. He normally follows Woden in the genealogies. Seaxnot was the tribal god of the Saxons, his name translates as “Helper of the Saxons”. Among the less important gods, the trio of women known as Norns were the Germanic equivalent of the fates; their festival day was December 25, considered the end of the year as their winter solstice. Hretha translates as glory. Eostre was a spring goddess, as attested by numerous votive offerings and Bede. Germanic kingship had an association beyond the gods, however. Like the Celts, the Germanic peoples also believed that royal families had a form of divine luck, which they called mana. It was thought that royal families had been given good fortune in the land’s fertility, raids, trading, and rule. When a king died, the man believed to have the clan’s strongest mana was elected the new king, probably by popular assembly. Society The social structure on a large scale was identical in all cultures. There were the kings, their retinue, spouses, and children which composed the ruling elite. There were peasants; farmers who moonlighted as carpenters, woodsmen, and craftsmen. Between the two there was a small middle class of entertainers and merchants. There was also a small segment of the population who were in various levels of slavery or members of religious orders - priests and monks. Land dominated most social relationships, which could be described as primitive forms of manorialism and feudalism. When primitive kingships started forming in the late fifth century they eventually spread out. In feudalism, proven members of his teulu were sent out as vassals to the kings, each in charge of several villages. In turn these vassals, primitive and non-hereditary nobles, made flexible contracts with the villages. Each year, in return for a pre-accepted amount of skilled labor, food, and goods, peasants were leased their land. Land would remain in the family. There was no central law system, so instead a person’s clan ensured their safety. An injury to a person was considered an injury to the clan and demanded reparation. Without it, the clan threatened a feud, which would be disastrous to everyone involved. The down side to the situation was that it did not allow individuals or even couples to move. People were stuck wherever they were born until the day they died unless they were fortunate enough to be accepted into the church, interested a bard, had some other unusual and desirable or useful skill, or could find work in the local warlord’s hall as a servant and/or plaything. Culture Groups *Britons: The British had been the second group of Celtic speakers to invade Britain, arriving some time after the eighth century B.C.E. Known as the P-Celts, they had taken over the island apart from the highlands by the time of the Roman invasion. Romano-Britons, their descendants, occupied the same area. Around 443, the Germanic foederati rebelled against them and took over the southern and western coastal regions. During the fifth century they would steadily lose ground to them. *Germanic: Several Germanic tribes were invited to settle along the western and southern coasts of Britain from the late fourth century by the Romans as foederati. In exchange for food and supplies, they were tasked with guarding the English Channel from raiders, mainly their own kinsmen. After the Romans left permanently, there was a period where Roman respect was transferred to the Romano-Britons but by around 443 they revolted. After that, territories once protected by them came under their control. Without them protecting the coast, their kinsmen began migrating to Britain as well. By 600 they had moved into most of England. They spoke a variety of dialects, each tribe having their own. This has come to be known as Old English. The migrating tribes included the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, and Frisians. *Irish: The first Celtic group to invade the British Isles, they were mostly pushed to Ireland with the British invasion. Uniting in the last years of the Roman occupation as a response to the threat from the east, Ireland would enjoy some measure of stability under Niall and those who followed. Because of the political consistency, more aggressive princes generated their own war-bands and raided the British coast. Some of the more successful teulus would eventually settle in several British coastal areas in an attempt to create their own kingdoms. They occupied modern Argyll, Anglesey, Dyfed, and Cornwall. They spoke Q-Celtic. *Pictish: Part of the first Celtic group to invade the British Isles, they managed to maintain control of Britain during the British Invasion. Due to the environment as well as their hardiness, the tribes managed to keep themselves united against Rome as well. However, they’d divided themselves by 400 so that the Highlands were full of internecine warfare and would remain so until the last half of the sixth century. Like the Irish, the Picts spoke a Q-Celtic language. Economics What follows is a very rough equivalence table, subject to changes locally, by year, and various conditions of the local property or economy. Christianity ] Germanic *Lammas *Litha *Ostara *Winter Nights *Yule Art *British Designs *Hanging Bowl *Manuscripts *Ornamental Techniques *Pictish Symbols *Skop In the post-Roman period, British art became a synthesis of old Celtic and Roman designs and symbols. The famous Celtic triquetra, the fascination with the head, the connection of water with holiness, and the Pictish symbols were variously joined with Christian icons, manuscripts, and Roman motifs to form a unique blend that can still be seen, most notably in surviving manuscripts. The era also generated an oral history steeped in history and culture in the bards of the Celts and the shops of the Germanic peoples. Using various pneumonic devices, audience techniques, rhyme schemes, and relying on their intensive training these oral "historians" were famed for their ability to quickly create moving and intricately rhymed poetry. The bard Aneirin is said to have composed all the many stanzas of the poem Y Gododdin before the morning after the battle of Catraeth. Culture In an era where places of learning were looted and no government was stable, culture suffered. Many of the Roman and Briton advances and intellectual accomplishments were forgotten. They weren't lost though, they were preserved in manuscripts. Monasteries were subject to raids by the Germanic peoples up until the sixth century, but their manuscripts were borrowed by any other monastery that had someone curious to read them. In the process they copied the document, preserving it against raids or simple bad luck, like fires. In monasteries throughout Europe the works of Aristotle, Boethius, Augustine, and Cicero survived, among many others. Works that were well known, like books of the Bible, were often carefully decorated. The Lindesfarne Gospels is perhaps the best remembered of these works. Because of the focus on preservation, however, very few new works were made. Gildas is considered one of the greatest writers of the sixth century but his style was classical, looking backward, instead of British, looking forward. He was not alone. Everywhere any culture that survived did so in Latin. Because of the innate respect for Latin, anything Roman was appreciated on a much deeper level than anything native. For this reason, what we do have of British, Pictish, Irish, and Germanic folklore and mythology is paltry. Technology Homes were made of wattle and daub and armor was primarily leather. Medicine went from being an art and a science taught in Roman schools to the use of a random group of potions and herbs learned from trial and error as well as superstition. During the Dark Ages, the pursuit of knowledge was considered witchcraft and could be punished by burning or drowning for their ties to the devil. This was especially true of women who, following the writings of Paul, were supposed to be supportive to men but to never work on anything too intellectual for fear it might make them sterile. They were especially not to have independent minds. Nor was there much chance of revitalizing culture or technology, or generating thinking. Trade remained at the local level, but with the constant worry of bandits, raiders, and pirates it slowed to a trickle. Cornwall alone, because of its tin deposits, was a regular stop during the period. PEASANTS *Beekeeping *Blacksmith *Bragawt *Camisa *Sub-Roman Farming *Carpenter *Mead *Mouldboard Plow *Thatching *Wattle and daub SHIPS *Cwrwgl *Merchant Ship WARRIORS A warrior's personal accoutrements would vary based on personal wealth, gifts from the king, and items scavenged from the battlefield *Armor *comitat *helmet *Heroic Age *Scramasax *Shield *Spatha *Spear *teulu IRISH *Ardri *Ri Tuaithe GERMANIC *Karvi Education *Apprentice *Journeyman *Master *Trivium *Quadrivium *Philosophy *Theology